3 or more monitors?

[mcfstep]

I have 2 pci8x slots free on the motherboard, are there graphics cards that slot into these inputs?

What I don't understand is that the PCI graphics card I'm using, as mentioned before, is only for desktop space, but I don't see how watching media on the PCIe desktop would be affected? Fair enough if I was watching media through the pci card or moving the video from monitor to monitor but I'm not, but just having it enabled seems to lag down the system...

[nightkhaos]

I have 2 pci8x slots free on the motherboard, are there graphics cards that slot into these inputs?

What I don't understand is that the PCI graphics card I'm using, as mentioned before, is only for desktop space, but I don't see how watching media on the PCIe desktop would be affected? Fair enough if I was watching media through the pci card or moving the video from monitor to monitor but I'm not, but just having it enabled seems to lag down the system...

Are they 16x long or 8x long, and are the closed or open ended?

i.e. are they the same length as your primary graphics card, or are they half the length? And if they are half the length, are the built in such a way that you could put your graphics card in it but it would hang off the end, i.e. open ended?

As for your other question, it quite simply shouldn't happen, but it is, so we must deal with it. I have a feeling that it is either the motherboard playing silly buggers, or a faulty card. The former might have the same problem even if we put a PCIe card in, the latter can be fixed with a replacement, either PCI or PCIe, assuming you can fit a PCIe card on your board.

[TheAnimus]

Great man... great... completely ignore the entirety of the post, including the bit that said he has no free PCIe x16 slots... I gotta love your style there.

On a more serious note.... mcfstep, sounds like you will need to replace to motherboard with one with two PCIe x16 slots (don't worry if they're only 8x enabled, 8x at 2.0 is still plenty fast for graphics. )

What is your processor and motherboard chipset, etc... and do you have anything nasty like a RAID setup, and finally, are you willing to spend a week setting up a fresh install of Windows?

Joke all you want, but its a heck of a lot of pixels, so start doing the maths, 33MB/s BUS, shifting 32bits per pixel, 60 times a second. Guess what starts to happen.

This becomes really apparent when you are scrolling something large like a browser accross all the screens. You get big 'steps' because its not able to exchange the video memory fast enough.

Because it takes so much graphics power to render the desktop... o_o
Honestly...

Seriously, the old matrox cards cause greif, i was able to slow down someones app by having a real time ticking graph that was only about 400px accross because the machine spent all day locking on the PCI bus.

Inrestingly even the quanty matlab users found a performance increase of 20% by just going to a PCIe card.

[mcfstep]

My motherboard is an ABIT IP35E if that helps determine any possible issues...

[nightkhaos]

Joke all you want, but its a heck of a lot of pixels, so start doing the maths, 33MB/s BUS, shifting 24bits per pixel, 60 times a second. Guess what starts to happen.

NB: there are only 24bits per pixel, not 32bits, on the final raw output, the 8 bit alpha is processed internally and is used in situations when you have one image superimposed over another. This could change when OLED screens become more popular as you could have a "see-through" screen, thus the 8bit alpha will have to processed with the final output image as well.

I guess you do have a point, even a small display (by today's standards) of 1440x900 would require bandwidth of 226.8 MB/s (that's megabytes, not megibytes, can't be bothered doing binary based division). But you also have to remember that in very rare circumstances will a complete "dump" of the video need to be given over the bus. Even moving windows between screen shouldn't require a complete dump, but you're right, I didn't realise the bus for PCI was only 33MiB/s...

[nightkhaos]

My motherboard is an ABIT IP35E if that helps determine any possible issues...

From the spec page: 1 x PCI-E X16, 2 x PCI-E X1, 3 x PCI

Conclusion: No you don't have 2x PCIe 8x slots, you need a new motherboard. Sorry.

I did not realise just how limited the PCI bus would be when it game to video memory. I am sure your system would be fine if you didn't have another video card installed, i.e. just the PCI card... the problem occurs when transfering windows between one screen and another... or basicly anything that requires constant updating of the picture, video for example, may overload the 33MiB/s bus.

[TheAnimus]

NB: there are only 24bits per pixel, not 32bits, on the final raw output, the 8 bit alpha is processed internally and is used in situations when you have one image superimposed over another. This could change when OLED screens become more popular as you could have a "see-through" screen, thus the 8bit alpha will have to processed with the final output image as well.

I guess you do have a point, even a small display (by today's standards) of 1440x900 would require bandwidth of 226.8 MB/s (that's megabytes, not megibytes, can't be bothered doing binary based division). But you also have to remember that in very rare circumstances will a complete "dump" of the video need to be given over the bus. Even moving windows between screen shouldn't require a complete dump, but you're right, I didn't realise the bus for PCI was only 33MiB/s...

Fraid when your transfering the VIDEO MEMORY, that its 32bits, not 24bits.

you don't constantly update the video memory either, even when watching a film or something.... But i digress.
(i can remeber a suprising amount of 2D video controller theory stuff)

[mcfstep]

Any suggestions as to what motherboard might be suitable?

[nightkhaos]

Any suggestions as to what motherboard might be suitable?

More information required. Can we get a complete system specification?

[TheAnimus]

actually can't you get some decent enough PCIe x1 cards?

http://www.oyyy.co.uk/product.php/86...LAID=338740571

[nightkhaos]

actually can't you get some decent enough PCIe x1 cards?

http://www.oyyy.co.uk/product.php/86...LAID=338740571

Touche.

[TheAnimus]

I don't know what that card is like, its probably higher end that what OP wants, but someone must know something about PCIe x1 cards!

[shaithis]

Well, there have been some reviews of 1x cards and they have fared well.

No, you shouldn't get one to game on but that's not what the OP wants them for.

Can't see any around cheap but there are 2 alternate solutions:

1. Buy a VERY cheap PCI-E gfx card and use a hacksaw to cut the connector back to the 1x size........this DOES work if your careful, as mad as it sounds.

2. Buy something like this - probably the better solution

[scaryjim]

or, very carefully open end one of the PCIe x1 slots so you don't have to massacre a perfectly good x16 graphics card you may want to sell later.

[mcfstep]

The Lycom extension item seems like a good idea. I take it that it simply plugs into one of the pci1x slots and then a pcie card goes into that?

[mcfstep]

Anyone know where I can get one as Scan seem to have been out of stock and overdue for some time now :-S